Camp Cook­ing VIV MOON

SOME­THING FISHY IS COOK­ING IN THE CAMP KITCHEN.

CE­VICHE is a dish of fresh fish mar­i­nated and cured in cit­rus juice, and it’s a pop­u­lar dish in the coastal re­gions of South Amer­ica. Ron and I did a fab­u­lous Mex­i­can food tour when we were in Mex­ico City a cou­ple of years ago. One of the best things we ate was their ver­sion of Ce­viche, served on toasted tor­tilla. It was de­li­cious, re­fresh­ing and tasty. A great meal for a hot sum­mer’s day.

• Put the diced fish in a medium non-metal­lic bowl. Do not use a metal bowl, as the acidic prop­er­ties of cit­rus juice can have a chem­i­cal re­ac­tion with the metal. • Pour the lime/lemon juice over the fish and mix gen­tly to com­bine. • Cover with plas­tic wrap and chill in the re­frig­er­a­tor un­til the fish is white through­out (about 25-30 min­utes). • Re­move from the re­frig­er­a­tor and gen­tly squeeze the fish with your hands to re­move the juice. • Dis­card the lime juice. • Add tomato, cu­cum­ber, onion and co­rian­der. • Sea­son with salt and pep­per to taste. • Add the hot sauce and chili (op­tional). • Mix gen­tly to com­bine all the in­gre­di­ents. • Spread the grilled tostadas with may­on­naise (op­tional) and top with the ce­viche. • Ar­range the av­o­cado slices on top of the ce­viche and serve im­me­di­ately with lime wedges.

VIV’S HINTS

• Use a fresh, firm, white-fleshed fish. Keep the fish cold, re­move the blood line and re­move all the skin and bones. • Use the right type of fish. In Mex­ico, red snap­per is tra­di­tion­ally used for ce­viche. In Aus­tralia, use ling, blue-eye trevalla, co­ral trout, em­per­ors, bar­ra­mundi, sea bass or mahi mahi. • Cut other in­gre­di­ents evenly and in small pieces. • Don’t over mar­i­nate the fish. When the fish starts to turn opaque it’s ready to mix with the other in­gre­di­ents. • Par­tially frozen fish is eas­ier to dice. • It’s worth tak­ing the time to re­move the seeds from the toma­toes, oth­er­wise you end up with too much liq­uid from the toma­toes. • If you want to be very tra­di­tional, use corn tor­tillas. Oth­er­wise soft tor­tillas, which are read­ily avail­able in your su­per­mar­ket, can be used. Heat on your bar­be­cue plate or in a pan un­til slightly brown and a lit­tle toasty.

WEB­SITE OF THE MONTH

Want to learn more about His­panic cook­ing, then check out the ‘His­panic Kitchen’ web­site: www.mami­verse.com/recipes

For more great recipes: Check out Ron & Viv Moon’s web­site at www.guide­books.com.au Fol­low their Face­book page: www.face­book.com/moon­ad­vpub